“They didn’t care or show no remorse,” Marcel Brown says, of the police officers who denied his constitutional rights.
CHICAGO, Il. – Marcel Brown, 34, spent nearly 10 years in prison after members of the Chicago Police Department coerced him into confessing to a crime he did not commit. He and his family have been fighting for justice for nearly six years, since his conviction was vacated and all charges against him were dropped.
Yesterday, a federal jury in Mr. Brown’s lawsuit against the City of Chicago deliberated just two hours before awarding him $50 million in damages. It is the largest award to a single wrongful-conviction plaintiff in United States history.
Mr. Brown was 18 years old in 2008 when he was arrested as an accomplice in a murder he didn’t even witness. Chicago police officers locked him in an interrogation room for more than 30 hours, interrogated him relentlessly, deprived him of food, denied his repeated requests for a phone call, and prevented him from sleeping. The police lied to him, threatened him with lengthy imprisonment if he refused to confess, and promised him he could go home if he did. When Mr. Brown’s mother arrived with an attorney, the detectives turned them away.
“I was just a kid,” says Mr. Brown. “They put me in a den full of lions, and they didn’t care or show remorse.”
Using a coerced partial confession and fabricated evidence—and suppressing exculpatory evidence—police and prosecutors secured a conviction for Brown. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Throughout his nearly 10 years of incarceration, Mr. Brown steadfastly maintained his innocence, and his family fought determinedly for justice. In June 2018, following an evidentiary hearing led by Karen Daniel of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, the Circuit Court of Cook County vacated his conviction. Four weeks later, the State’s Attorney dismissed all charges against him. In 2019, the Circuit Court of Cook County granted Mr. Brown a Certificate of Innocence.
Mr. Brown filed a civil suit against the City of Chicago and the officers involved in 2019. He was represented by Jon Loevy, Locke Bowman, and Tom Kayes of the civil rights law firm Loevy + Loevy, and Vanessa del Valle and Jonathan Manes of the Roderick and Solange Macarthur Justice Center.
Yesterday, after a two-week trial, the jury unanimously decided in Mr. Brown’s favor, finding that the police coerced his statement and fabricated evidence. They awarded him $10 million in compensatory damages for the time between his arrest and conviction, and $40 million in damages for his time in prison and after.
Additionally, the jury awarded $50,000 in punitive damages against Chicago police detective Michael Mancuso, who led the Chicago Police Department’s flawed investigation and was Brown’s primary interrogator.
“Justice was finally served for me and my family today,” Mr. Brown said yesterday, standing with his family and supporters at a press conference immediately following the verdict. “We’re just thankful, being able to be here today. Thank you, jurors.”
According to Mr. Brown’s attorneys, the landmark award represents a wake-up call for city officials, a clear signal that the people are tired of police and prosecutorial misconduct in a city that has seen too much of both.
“The City could have resolved this case years ago, but instead decided to fight it to the end, despite there being video evidence of the detectives using deceptive and coercive tactics during their 33-hour interrogation of Mr. Brown,” said attorney Vanessa del Valle.
“This jury saw that [Mr. Brown’s] constitutional rights were violated, and they also found that the Chicago Police Department and the detectives fabricated evidence,” said attorney Jon Loevy, at the press conference following the verdict. “And I think this jury is signaling: enough. The people of the City of Chicago are tired of it. The Chicago Police Department has got to find a way to stop wrongfully convicting people.”
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A copy of the complaint can be found here.
Loevy & Loevy is one of the nation’s largest civil rights law firms, and over the past decade has won more multi-million dollar jury verdicts than any other civil rights law firm in the country. www.loevy.com
The Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center is a national, nonprofit legal organization dedicated to protecting civil rights and fighting injustice in the criminal legal system through litigation at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels. www.macarthurjustice.org
